Quote from: Willie the Duck;968814I think that was in reference to dying because of a single roll, and then waiting until the party gets back to civilization such that their character is raised or replaced.

The funny thing about that is I was responding to three specific spells, two of which only put you out until the end of combat--if even that--and the third leaves nothing to raise. That third one also has the longest casting time so is the easiest to stop--it will get trumped by a Silence 15' Radius which has a shorter casting time.

So my head went more to the first two. And it's interesting because one of my campaigns has a bad guy NPC that targets adventurers. He's an evil wizard, and his M.O. is typically to begin by casting Fear so he only has to contend with one-half to one-third of the party, then follows that up with hold person, and his orc minions attack any who are still fighting after that, meanwhile the wizard casts Detect Magic then goes up to one of the held characters, steals a magic item, then him and his band break off, and that's the end of that. Nobody is sitting out for very long at all. And nobody loses their character.

But all the responses since really say it quite well. It seems like the reasons given for disliking save-or-die have more to do with other aspects of play styles being weak at keeping players involved than anything else. And there are plenty of known solutions.

Quote from: Lunamancer;968768Well, I don't know that anything happens "due to a single die roll."

Sleep, 1st level spell, every 1st level PC is one die roll away from a nap. Possibly a dirt nap, depending on the foes involved. I don't remember how long sleep takes to cast in TSR D&D, maybe it provides the targets a round or two to interrupt the caster. If so, the caster player is now twiddling his thumbs for however many rounds -- which you perhaps don't see as a problem, but there are better ways to implement effects that effectively remove opponents from the field.

If we go back to your asp scenario, yes, death-by-asp involves a similar number of die rolls than death-by-orc for a 1st level PC. And both of those things are problematic for some of us for the same reasons.

Quote from: Lunamancer;968768* I've deliberately left out "Extreme luck is somehow anti-climactic and boring" and "Bad stuff might happen your first time out" because I'm assuming if you really meant that, D&D probably isn't the game for you at all. No sense in trying to tweak it.

Not at all, just start at 3rd level or so. Or play 4e, which is great about making PC death climactic, and despite all the myths others would have you believe -- one of which appears in the OP -- is damned good D&D. It's certainly the only D&D I'll run at any level any more.

I'll also note that D&D could have gone the way of some other rpgs, where PCs gain skill as they advance but no more survivability. Instead though, we have a D&D where PCs quickly acquire enough damage-cushion so that many die rolls are required to be KOed-by-sword-or-claw, and I don't think this fact is just happenstance. I think Gygax (& Arneson?) realized that most players want a cushion between their PCs and KO status -- it's just that most editions are inconsistent about this. Despite 1st level fragility and various save-or-lose effects, I think it's pretty backward to think that the desire for climactic encounters is somehow contrary to D&D.

Quote from: Lunamancer;968768What makes you say that?

It's a bit ironic, don't you think? "High level D&D works in part because undead critters can make the PCs less high level, possibly even low level again..."

Quote from: Spinachcat;968882I'd argue the OD&D "sweet spot" is 4th to 7th.

Agreed.

OD&D, BXCMI, AD&D can all handle higher level play OK.  I still don't like it.

Even in older editions though, high level play is just not as fun as mid or low level.  Once players get over the "ooh, ahh, look at my shiny 14th level MU" thing, it just gets dull.  Perhaps because it is less of a challenge. I understand the impulse for dungeons like Tomb of Horrors - lets give them a real challenge and kill them off at the same time! Perhaps it's because character growth is less exciting at high levels.  Gaining 4th level is is cool, gaining 15th is sort of..meh. There is less motivation for the acquisition of gold and power.  It loses its luster. As a concern for some, game balance gets weird at high levels.  Spell users dominate.  For me though, high level play seems less grounded.  Things like torches, rope, shieldwalls, ambushes, setting watch, building solid base camps and tactics in general get replaced cool abilities, magical powers, and game widgets.  Tons of monsters lose their usefulness. Dragons become ho-hum, and city watchmen are just pointless.  It's just not that fun.

Point is, high level play kinda sucks, even in versions of the game that can handle it mechanically.

..and forget high level play in 3rd or Pathfinder which show signs of strain at 7th and begin to breakdown at 9th - at least in my experience.  Any more I won't touch a d20 system after about 6th.

Quote from: Madprofessor;969056OD&D, BXCMI, AD&D can all handle higher level play OK.  I still don't like it.

Point is, high level play kinda sucks, even in versions of the game that can handle it mechanically.

See, I love it. We're just getting started once the group hits 12th level. There is definitely a shift in play style, but the opportunities it provides are awesome. But, yes, it's not everyone's cup of tea.

Quote from: Madprofessor;969056Even in older editions though, high level play is just not as fun as mid or low level.  Once players get over the "ooh, ahh, look at my shiny 14th level MU" thing, it just gets dull.  Perhaps because it is less of a challenge.

But there's no particular reason that high level play is less of a challenges. If you increase the challenge the PCs are up against, the difficulty should stay the same.

I would phrase it slightly differently.  The challenges the PCs are up against should largely change in their base nature.  Too many DMs try to treadmill the same types of activities the players did at lower levels into having the same math to maintain "challenge".  I wouldn't do that.  (And I'm not saying you said that.)

What is more challenging is that high level play starts to move into other planes of existence, political maneuver, and such.  But not that the local monster population seems to get tougher as the PCs do.   It can be very satisfying for the players to dip down into the sorts of activities that they used to and blow through them with ease.  It's a practical demonstration of their growth relative to the more fixed environment.

Correct, I meant the level of challenge should not change, not that the challenges shouldn't.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;969021Sleep, 1st level spell, every 1st level PC is one die roll away from a nap. Possibly a dirt nap, depending on the foes involved. I don't remember how long sleep takes to cast in TSR D&D, maybe it provides the targets a round or two to interrupt the caster. If so, the caster player is now twiddling his thumbs for however many rounds -- which you perhaps don't see as a problem, but there are better ways to implement effects that effectively remove opponents from the field.

AD&D sleep spell casting time was... 1 segment. No save. How many it effected was random and based on the HD of those in the radius. Effecting up to 4HD creatures, but there was only a 50% chance to drop one of those. It allowed insta-killing.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;969021Sleep, 1st level spell, every 1st level PC is one die roll away from a nap. Possibly a dirt nap, depending on the foes involved. I don't remember how long sleep takes to cast in TSR D&D, maybe it provides the targets a round or two to interrupt the caster. If so, the caster player is now twiddling his thumbs for however many rounds -- which you perhaps don't see as a problem, but there are better ways to implement effects that effectively remove opponents from the field.

Since Omega's already handled the fact checking, I'm going straight to to the heart of the matter. This is no different from the example of the asp. Like the asp, if the mage is slain or incapacitated before he can act, then this ability is rendered moot. Spell casting has an additional difficulty, that there is time between the start of the casting and its completion in which the spell can be disrupted. Presumably all those intervening actions involve several dice rolls. These are the dice rolls that aren't being accounted for when you say "due to a single die roll." It's not due to a single die roll.

QuoteIf we go back to your asp scenario, yes, death-by-asp involves a similar number of die rolls than death-by-orc for a 1st level PC. And both of those things are problematic for some of us for the same reasons.

Not at all, just start at 3rd level or so. Or play 4e, which is great about making PC death climactic, and despite all the myths others would have you believe -- one of which appears in the OP -- is damned good D&D. It's certainly the only D&D I'll run at any level any more.

So, in other words, D&D just wasn't the game for you.

QuoteI'll also note that D&D could have gone the way of some other rpgs, where PCs gain skill as they advance but no more survivability.

Sure. And I would enjoy that. But it's the same underlying theme. As characters grow, not every characteristic scales uniformly. Not that uniform scaling would solve the high level suck problem--it doesn't. At its very best, uniform scaling leads to a treadmill of tedium. The point is we are stuck non-uniform scaling, so expectations of uniformity aren't exactly reasonable.

QuoteInstead though, we have a D&D where PCs quickly acquire enough damage-cushion so that many die rolls are required to be KOed-by-sword-or-claw, and I don't think this fact is just happenstance. I think Gygax (& Arneson?) realized that most players want a cushion between their PCs and KO status

I'm pretty sure that was just the easiest, most obvious way to be able to stat the hero as being worth four men. You can find plenty of examples of Gygax having to defend hit points because if taken literally as physical toughness they didn't make a lot of sense. They represent skill in avoiding fatal blows. Actually, weren't you just saying that you wish advancement was in skills rather than becoming super-human? Well, that's what this is.

As to whether players want a cushion? It's a complex question, isn't it? At some level, we want the game to be interesting, so we want things to work against us. At a baser level, we want anything and everything that stacks the odds in our favor. Yeah, I want a hit point buffer. And a million gold pieces, a magical version of every piece of my equipment, and I want to begin the game with three wishes. Real wishes. Not those pussy wishes that don't let me wish for more wishes. Oh, but part of that is they don't want their blade to have to cut through thousands of hit points to slit someone else's throat. They expect their enemies to die instantly.

Whether intended or not, that is what the D&D system seems to deliver. A growing cushion against harm in general without negating the various Achilles' heels.

Quote-- it's just that most editions are inconsistent about this. Despite 1st level fragility and various save-or-lose effects, I think it's pretty backward to think that the desire for climactic encounters is somehow contrary to D&D.

Climactic encounters?

QuoteIt's a bit ironic, don't you think? "High level D&D works in part because undead critters can make the PCs less high level, possibly even low level again..."

Yeah, it would be ironic if someone actually said that. What I said, and I was extremely specific about it, is losing a level is a greater XP loss to a higher level character. Most obstacles become less and less of an inconvenience as characters level. You go from getting hit for 10 damage being insta-kill, to it being a hefty wound, to it being a minor scratch. Even the asp's deadly venom is easier to save against for higher level characters. But earning back XP for a level lost? It's a rare thing that actually becomes harder at higher levels.

Quote from: Lunamancer;969157Since Omega's already handled the fact checking, I'm going straight to to the heart of the matter.

Yes, lets. Do you really not understand the difference between effects which hang the victim's entire participation in an encounter, if not the victim's very life, on a single die roll (or none, in the case of sleep); and the otherwise back-and-forth of attack rolls, damage rolls, and other tactical spells, after PCs have enough hit points to survive a damage roll or two?

Or are you just trolling my assumption that as D&D gamers, we both implicitly understand that there will always be initiative rolls at the start of combat?

Quote from: Lunamancer;969157So, in other words, D&D just wasn't the game for you.

So in other words, your only interest here is viking hatting and edition warring.

Quote from: Omega;969111AD&D sleep spell casting time was... 1 segment. No save. How many it effected was random and based on the HD of those in the radius. Effecting up to 4HD creatures, but there was only a 50% chance to drop one of those. It allowed insta-killing.

Thanks, should have checked my 2e PHB. So sleep doesn't even allow a save. Never played an edition that uses segments, but I'm guessing segment = round.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;969409Thanks, should have checked my 2e PHB. So sleep doesn't even allow a save. Never played an edition that uses segments, but I'm guessing segment = round.

Segment is a 10th of a round. 10 segments in a round.

In 2e they kept segments as an optional. It added to the wizards initiative roll so they acted later in the round. Initiative was a d10. I'll have to look up what it is in AD&D.

2e Sleep is much the same as 1e. Casting time 1. That is +1 on the casters initiative. No save. But now it only drops 2d4 HD worth of monsters and doesnt effect any over 4+3. Effecting the lowest HD first. Way down from the AD&D version which can take down upwards of 7d4 individuals. Looks like you could no longer insta-kill them while sleeping though.

Quote from: Omega;969438Segment is a 10th of a round. 10 segments in a round.

In 2e they kept segments as an optional. It added to the wizards initiative roll so they acted later in the round. Initiative was a d10. I'll have to look up what it is in AD&D.

2e Sleep is much the same as 1e. Casting time 1. That is +1 on the casters initiative. No save. But now it only drops 2d4 HD worth of monsters and doesnt effect any over 4+3. Effecting the lowest HD first. Way down from the AD&D version which can take down upwards of 7d4 individuals. Looks like you could no longer insta-kill them while sleeping though.

Interestingly By 3.5 you could insta kill things again with the coup de grâce rules.

Quote from: Tequila Sunrise;969402Yes, lets. Do you really not understand the difference between effects which hang the victim's entire participation in an encounter, if not the victim's very life, on a single die roll (or none, in the case of sleep); and the otherwise back-and-forth of attack rolls, damage rolls, and other tactical spells, after PCs have enough hit points to survive a damage roll or two?

It seems like you're assuming the mage getting the spell off is a sure thing. Spells can be disrupted by damaging the mage prior to completion of the spell. And it generally seems like the older the version of the game, the bigger deal is made of spell disruption. So I understand why someone used to newer versions of the game could underestimate the importance of this, or even ignore it. You need to understand that your assessment isn't accurate if you don't account for spell disruption.

To put it another way, I think we both agree that death by hit point depletion is generally not "due to a single die roll" because even if my max 100 hit point fighter had only 6 hit points left when that last damage die turned up a 6, I would never say "Woe is me; my fate was sealed by a single die roll." That would be silly because it ignores all the other dice rolls that got my fighter down to 6 hit points from 100 in the first place. The actions that transpired to get my fighter into a position where he could get killed count.

Well, all the actions that transpired to bring us to the point where a save-or-die spell is actually successfully completed count as well. It would be equally silly to point only at the very last die roll before my character dies (in this case, the saving throw) and say "See! Due to a single die roll."

QuoteOr are you just trolling my assumption that as D&D gamers, we both implicitly understand that there will always be initiative rolls at the start of combat?

This is neither here nor there, but you do seem laden with a lot of assumptions borne out of newer D&D that do not apply to old D&D. Pre 3E, we generally roll initiative not at the start of combat but each round. And it's not even necessarily at the beginning of the round. The rules call first for declaration of intent and pre-initiative actions before initiative is rolled (my own house rules due away with pre-declaration of intent entirely, but a lot more happens as pre-initiative actions).

QuoteSo in other words, your only interest here is viking hatting and edition warring.

In case you weren't aware, popular sentiment is that 4E is a mighty fine RPG and it would have been well received if it was called anything but D&D because it's just too much of a departure from D&D to be called D&D. The people who are saying that aren't trashing the system, and they certainly aren't edition warring. Saying "Well I like 4E just fine" in response to "Maybe D&D isn't the game for you" just lends more credibility to the idea that 4E really just isn't D&D.

My personal opinion of 4E is exactly the same as my personal opinion of 3E. And that is, look, I played my first game of D&D when I was 6. I'm 40 years old. If they're going to go and change the game so much that I essentially have to learn the whole damn system from scratch anyway, I may as well just go and find an RPG that better suits how my tastes have changed over the years. And I've done just that. But I do still find good old fashioned D&D enjoyable in its own right. I mean it's just a fucking game. Not a religion. So if any of this constitutes "viking hatting" and "edition warring" then I guess those terms track just as well as "due to a single die roll"--a complete perversion of language.

Going back over spellcasting in AD&D its notable that its actually rather hard to disrupt a spell. This was due to the initiative system which was per side, not per individual.

The twist was that casters had to declare their spells before round initiative was rolled. The only way to disrupt a spell was if you got your initiative within the casting window. The example given was the caster is going on initiative 5. So any attempts to disrupt have to come on segments 5+.

So Im casting Fireball. Our side rolls init 4 their side rolls initiative 2. I start casting on 4 and wont finish till 2. So the enemy might be able to disrupt casting just as Im about to launch. Something like Reverse Gravity that tales 7 segments wouldn't finish till next round on initiative 7.

And casters got NO DEX bonus to AC on any round/s they are casting. Any hit would disrupt the spell. So would trying to move during casting.

Added note: In BX there was no spell interruption except to win initiative and kill the caster.